By Martin Evans and Nick Collins, Telegraph
Parents across the country were forced to stay at home to look after their children after thousands of schools closed in the face of worsening weather. Concerns over safety as well as transport problems for pupils and staff meant the vast majority of primary and secondary schools in the worst hit areas could not open. But some parents and business leaders expressed concern that head teachers were closing their doors at the first sign of a snowflake. For many youngsters it meant a welcome …

Tim Ross
State schools will be asked to merge under a dramatic cost-cutting plan.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls set out the sweeping measures, including bulk-buying of equipment and sharing headteachers between several schools.
Education groups will run more efficient chains of state schools and schools should merge to form “federations”.
Campaign group Parents Outloud expressed some alarm at the plan, warning that children will be “lost in the mass” of huge primaries and secondaries. It will be interesting to hear parents reaction to this, it is hard to think how the ethos of …

From The Times
Richard Ford, Home Correspondent
A generation of youths who do not know how to treat women are to be targeted in a drive to tackle violence and abuse in teenage relationships, the Government announced today.
The campaign could also involve children as young as 5 being taught about “gender equality” as part of personal, social and health education that, from 2011, is to be a compulsory part of the national curriculum. Rules are also to be produced for how teachers should tackle “sexist, sexual and transphobic” bullying.
A strategy to tackle …